The Stray
by Degby
Summary: The curse turns Rumple into a stray dog and Belle into an agoraphobic who never leaves her apartment. Neither one knows about the other until Emma Swan appears in town and an unexpected disaster bring Belle out of hiding. Will dog!Rumple be able to help Belle and Emma break the curse and return to human form to be with his true love?
1. Chapter 1

There was an ornery little stray dog that lived in a runoff pipe outside the town of Storybrooke. When it rained too much the extra water from the river that ran beside the town of Storybrooke would flow into the pipe and soak the little dog to the skin without warning, but most of the time the place was hospitable enough. Nobody payed him much mind and that was the way the dog told himself he liked it.

The dog was small and gray and skinny and his matted fur was host to plentiful tangles, burrs, and fleas. He was a combination of several types of terrier and looked a bit like a cross between a miniature schnauzer and a Scottie dog if you peered really carefully, not that anyone actually did. The dog's appearance was completely unremarkable in any other way except for a pair of sorrowful, overlarge brown eyes which in some lights looked almost human.

The stray dog loved to horde things, which he collected inside the metal pipe that was his home or buried in the soft mud just below it. People in Storybrooke threw all sorts of beautiful, valuable things out and for the life of him the dog could not see why. Everything was useful in its own way if one just thought a bit about it, he reasoned; like the little chipped china cup he found behind the antique shop that he used to catch the rainwater he drank or the pair of ugly wooden puppets he liked to chew on before bed.

The only object he had in his entire horde that wasn't useful at all was the wavy metal knife with the fancy human writing on it. It made him feel funny whenever he looked at it, like he had just ate a whole field full of grass and was getting ready to throw it up. One day he took the knife in his mouth and trotted over to the muddy side of the drainpipe and dug a hole. Then he buried the knife deep, deep in the mud He slept better knowing it was hidden there, out of sight, but the thought that it was still there, somewhere deep underneath him, still troubled him for some reason he couldn't recall.

He couldn't remember where he'd gotten it from, just like he couldn't remember many other things from the misty origins of his early life. He had no clue what he'd been like as a pup or what his mother or father or siblings had smelled like. When he tried to remember his early days, all he recalled was the scent of wet sheep's wool and the repetitive creaking sound of some kind of wooden wheel. It was strange because there were no sheep in Storybrooke and no spinning wheels either and yet he was certain he recalled those things. Oddest of all he remembered having human hands, covered in furless skin tanned light brown from the sun, and the feel of thread moving through his fingers. He dreamed of being a human quite often, actually, and walking with human beings too, a pariticular dark haired boy and an auburn haired young woman, for instance, among houses that looked very different from any home he saw in the town.

It really was most peculiar.


	2. Chapter 2

Storybrooke was supposed to be a perfect town without strays and David, one of the employees of the animal shelter would always try to catch the little gray dog whenever he saw it on the prowl, but the feral thing was too wily and somehow always managed to slip through his fingers.

David didn't feel too badly about letting the animal get away though. He always took tender care of the strays he brought to the animal shelter, making sure they were cleaned up, socialized, fed, got shots and flea baths and were treated for whatever parasites or diseases they'd picked up on the street, and in general put into as appealing conditions as possible so they could be swiftly adopted into loving homes.

But all encounters with that particular dog pointed to the fact that it would never be rehabilitated and tamed. It even growled and ran away from Ruby, the kind hearted granddaughter of Mrs. Lucas, the owner of the diner when she tried to feed it leftover meat. Ruby volunteered at the shelter on weekends and David had never seen a dog not fall in love and come to heel right away in her presence.

David also noticed that despite its relatively small size, the scars of multiple fights stood out in high relief on the dog's dark gray face and its snarling teeth-snapping behavior at even the gentlest attempt to coax it anywhere or feed it, were clear evidence to David that he could probably never in good conscious recommend that dog to anyone as a pet. Not to mention that it was an older dog too, judging by the whitish-gray hair around its mouth and people prefer young dogs or puppies.

David knew if the dog was in the shelter and not adopted by a certain time he would be forced to put it down. So far David was proud to say he had always been able to find a home for every dog he caught, but even he knew that this particular dog would be an extremely difficult animal for a human to love.

Often the dog would go into Storybrooke to skulk around the garbage bins in the alleyways between the restaurants. One Italian restaurant was usually a good bet and there was always Granny's with the ever-forgiving Ruby to beg from.

But sometimes he would go into Storybrooke for other reasons that he didn't completely understand. Had he been able to explain it in words a human being could understand he would have said he was searching for a particular three particular scents. He could feel the contours of the smells in his mind, if only he could trace them and find their source. It was most frustrating, but he knew he couldn't give up on his quest. No one would ever believe it, but he knew what he was doing was the most important thing in the world. Everything else, his little collection by the drainpipe, and the efforts of the animal shelter man to catch him were in consequential in the grand scheme of things. The twittering sounds the human beings made at each other, the same sounds day in and day out that they all thought were so much more important, he knew all of it was meaningless. His quest to find the smells would be the beginning and the end of everything in this strange little town, if only the people there knew it.

But as it was they continued on in complete ignorance, and the dog carried on its fruitless search.

Until the day that everything changed.

Since the beginning he had always been able to detect the faintest smell of one of the female humans he was looking for around the boarded up clock tower building in the centre of the town. He did not know why this was so, as he had never seen the owner of the smell, and yet it was always there and it never faded. He smelled something else from this particular building too, something that smelled so strongly that it often blotted out the scent of the female human he was searching for. He knew it was the smell of something purple and sparkly and powerful, oh, so very powerful, but how he knew this and why he could not explain. There was something dangerous about the smell too, and yet so compelling, that sometimes he would just lie there his head upon his paws near a vent at the bottom of the building, just sniffing the glorious addictive scent. It would make him sleepy, too and when he slept he'd have the strangest dreams, dreams of himself as a man again, but not exactly a man, rather a man-like creature with skin like one of the lizards he caught by the stream, all shining and silvery-green-gold with scales like a fish and the golden eyes like a cat.

When he woke he'd stumble out of the alley behind the boarded up building like he was drunk.

The other two scents, the one of the male juvenile human he longed for the most and the other of the infant female human, never met his nose until the day he spotted a new car drive into town.

It was different from the other cars in town. It was an odd colour and the clouds of gas that came out its tale pipe smelled extremely peculiar. The dog tracked the car from the town line all the way into Storybrooke, trotting down the sidewalk nearly beside it before it came to a stop outside Granny Lucas's diner. It was at that point that a woman in tall leather boots stepped out and the dog got the heady scent of one of the people he had been looking for, for so long at full blast.

She wasn't a baby anymore, this female human he'd been on his quest for, for so long, oh this he could tell right away, but he knew without a doubt it was her. Emma. The Savior. She smelled—unique. And also a bit like the way the vent by the boarded up clock tower smelled. Like _magic. _

Intrigued, he followed her getting as close to her heels as he dared. At one point she turned back to look at him, her posture oddly tense, like _she almost knew what he was._ What? What was he? He was a dog, wasn't he? But then the Emma woman he'd been searching for just shrug and continued up the steps to Granny's leaving the stray dog behind on the steps, reeling and drunk on the scent of magic. The dog shook his head, like he was trying to shake off drops of water, but the Emma woman and her magical scent still clouded his mind.

He stumbled down the steps from Granny's and out into the street.

Storybrooke was a quiet little town and everything was situated quite close together. Many people didn't even drive. Those citizens who did, were priviledged never to encounter the hell of traffic jams or the irritation of stoplights and speed bumps at every corner. The town was laid out on a grid and the ground was mostly flat, so anyone driving could see from far down the street if any pedestrian, whether human or animal, was crossing the road, long before they had to slam on the breaks.

It is hard to credit Mayor Mills's claim, that she did not see the gray dog walking across the road from Granny's diner to the clock tower on the other side. It was a small dog, but not _that_ small. As for the mayor's assertion that she only continued to drive on down the street because she didn't noticed the thump and the scream of the dog coming in contact with her left front wheel, well that, as Belle French later said, was completely impossible.


	3. Chapter 3

Belle French was what the people of Storybrooke charitably called "peculiar." She lived in the apartment underneath the clock tower, above the boarded up library. Few people ever saw her other than the delivery girl from Grocery Gateway, where Belle ordered most of her groceries online. Every night her father, Maurice, the inventor, came over for dinner. Belle cooked and Maurice brought her her latest book purchases from Amazon, which were sent to the old family apartment above the flower shop.

No one could remember how long Belle had removed herself from the public life of Storybrooke or why. Belle herself had tried many times to go out, but every time she tried to set just a foot outdoors it was like all the air went out of her lungs and her heart beat so fast it nearly came out her chest. Each day she would try and each day she would retreat back into her house, ashamed and defeated.

_Tomorrow will be different, _she promised herself, trying to be optimistic, and not get too down on herself. But every day was the same. Still, Belle led as full a life as she could, sequestered in her apartment. She read voraciously and taught herself gourmet cooking through "How To" videos off You Tube. She wrote and drew and painted. She watched TV shows and movies and played internet roleplaying games. It was a good way to make friends for someone as shut in as she was. Still, as nice as her internet friendships were, she longed to meet someone real, to feel the touch of a friend or lover.

Belle's one secret vice was this: she liked to watch people. Evening was the best time for it as people's houses lit up with lights from within and oftentimes they forgot to pull down the shades. Belle observed families in the yellow warmth of their lamps watching TV or eating dinner and she imagined what it would be like to know them, to be their friend. She dreamed up lives for them and backstories. Sometimes in her daydreams she was part of one of the families or the nanny for the children.

Straight across from the clock tower was Granny's 24 hour diner. This was one of Belle's favourite places to watch. Belle could see the customers coming in and out at all times of day and night. Even if she didn't know their names, she knew all the regulars by sight. Sometimes she talked to her father about it, comparing her made up stories about their lives and professions to the real ones her father knew. It was interesting to see how much she had guessed about them, just by quietly observing, like a certain detective she'd read about.

However, she took care not to spend too long talking to her father about it or to mention this pastime too frequently. She didn't want him to feel bad for her at how much she was missing out on. He blamed himself for some reason, thinking the fault for her difficulties was down to his shoddy parenting after her mother died when she was a child. Though Belle tried to reassure poor Maurice that he was the best father in the world, and she had lacked for nothing as a child, she knew he couldn't help feeling that had her mother been alive, _she_ would have known what to do to break Belle out of her seclusion.

What no one, least of all Belle or her father ever expected was that what would end up breaking her out of her seclusion wasn't a person at all, but a dog.

It was another ordinary day for Belle. She ate her breakfast and slowly drank her coffee in the breakfast nook of her apartment, staring dreamily out the window at the familiar folk filing into Granny's for their morning pancakes and coffee.

The strange yellow car parked by the side of the road and the unfamiliar blonde woman who exited the vehicle, caused Belle to pay more attention than she otherwise might have. Strangers in Storybrooke were rare. She wondered what this woman's story was and instantly began to concoct one with her vivid imagination. Stranger still, Belle noticed that the little gray dog that hug skulked around the back of Granny's sometimes, pawing at the garbage bags for leftover food was trotting around out in the open, actually following the visitor. This was odd, Belle knew, because in her observation, the dog tended avoid human contact like the plague, sticking to the alleyways, where the people of Storybrooke seldom ventured.

She watched as the blonde woman went inside Granny's, leaving the stray dog outside. Then the stray began to trot across the empty street on its way to the other side. Sipping her coffee Belle watched lazily as the mayor's fancy BMW drove down the street. Belle assumed the Mayor would stop before she got to the dog and honk at it to move, or swerve around it. After all, the street was wide and the dog was small, there was plenty of space to drive freely. The dog was in the one lane over from the one in which the mayor, Regina Mills was driving. The stray was just a few steps away from the curb, when, to Belle's shock, the mayor's car accelerated and swerved over into the next lane in a direct path towards the dog.

"No! Stop!" screamed Belle, but no one could hear her, one floor up and behind the glass of her window. At any rate, it was too late, as the dog's front paws touched the curb, the BMW careened into its back legs and tail, sending the poor beast flying.

A human like scream rent the air that Belle could hear even inside her apartment. For a split second, she felt a strange prickly sensation at the back of her neck and shoulders, but then, with a cold shiver she broke out of it. All that was in Belle's mind as she bolted out of the apartment door, down the stairs and into the wide open street, was that if someone didn't do something, the dog would die. People were just starting to come out of their shops and houses, looking around to find the source of the frightful sound, but Belle, who'd seen it all was already out on the pavement cradling the injured dog in her arms.

_There was so much blood._

Most of it was coming from the dog's back legs and tail. Belle glanced at them for a second and then looked away. Instead she stared at the dog's large brown eyes, with their gold-amber centres. The wounded canine stared up at her and whimpered softly and Belle couldn't help, but think she was looking into the soul of another human being, some sort of sentient human-ish creature, someone very old and very sad, who had suffered very much in his long, long life.

The gray dog shivered with shock in the arms of the woman he'd looked for for so long.

_Belle, _he marveled at the beautiful face that peered worriedly down into his own. _You came back._

And in his rapidly fading consciousness he saw her in his mind's eye as he'd known her once upon a time, in a dress of bright yellow like the sun, pulling down the curtains surrounding his life, letting the light in at last.

_At least I got to see you…one last time. _

And for some reason she could not explain, as the body of the injured stray relaxed and collapsed into unconsciousness in her arms, Belle found her face pressed against his fur whispering, _Please don't leave me… I love you._


	4. Chapter 4

Emma Swan came bursting out of Granny's at the sound of screams to see a woman in slippers kneeling down on the sidewalk across the street to hold a bleeding dog in her arms.

"What? What's going on here?" she asked.

The blonde woman across the street was the first person to say anything to Belle. As she spoke Belle connected the woman with the yellow car, the vehicle closest to them. Belle didn't know where the animal hospital was, but she knew it wasn't anywhere within her view from the apartment.

"Please!" she begged the stranger. "Miss, you have to help me! This dog was hit by a car. If we don't do something he will bleed to death. We have to get him to a hospital!"

Emma crossed the street and helped Belle carry the dog to her yellow volkswagon beetle. Frankly, Emma wasn't sure if it was worth getting the backseat all covered in blood, the poor beast didn't look like it was going to make it. Still, she knew they had to try. It was the right thing to do.

"Uh, do you know where the animal hospital is? I'm new to this town," said Emma.

"Uh…" Belle really hadn't thought this far ahead.

Luckily, just then Granny's dark haired daughter Ruby, came knocking on the window of the car.

"Hey! Hey guys! I just saw what happened! We have to tell the police and get that dog to the hospital!"

"Yeah, we were just taking him, only we don't know where—"

"Let me in! I'll show you the way. I volunteer there!"

Before Emma could say a thing, Ruby had the door to the backseat open and was pushing in next to Belle.

"Good straight down the street and make a right on Goldfinch, it's two blocks down. Yeah, that's right," Ruby instructed Emma.

As Emma drove Ruby softly stroked the stray's head as he lay in Belle's lap. She glanced at the dog's injuries with a pained expression on her face.

"Shit," Ruby winced. "This does not look good. Poor thing. My guess is he's going to need some serious medical care, probably surgery to have any chance at survival. I hope you have pet insurance."

"I don't-uh, this—he's not my dog," said Belle self-consciously. She was beginning to realize that in the past five minutes she'd just gone out of the house for the first time in years and talked to two people face to face who weren't her father. That was two more people than she'd talked to in the past five years _alone._

"Oh," Ruby scrunched up her nose, thinking. "You're new here too? I can't remember seeing you before."

"I'm not new," said Belle softly. "I've lived here nearly all my life."

"But—" then Ruby's eyes grew wide as the other shoe dropped. "Oh my God! You're Belle! Belle French!"

Belle looked down and gave a slight dip of her head in ascent.

"But you never—"

"Hey! Sorry you, the taller one, don't know your name," Emma called out to Ruby from the front. "But we're on Goldfinch now. How far do I keep going down this road?"

Belle and Ruby carried the dog inside the animal hospital while Emma parked the car. Now that some of the shock and adrenalin had died down, Belle was feeling very frightened. The world outside was terrifying. All that air and space, with nothing to hold onto or hide behind. If she thought about it too much she knew her throat would start to close up again. She looked down at the injured beast in her arms and concentrated on him. That was her mission, she decided. She would concentrate on that—just getting the injured dog inside the hospital. The dog needed her with her whole mind focused on the task at hand, or she wouldn't be able to save his life. Distantly, somewhere in the back of her head she wondered how she had decided the dog was definitely a _he_, without actually checking, but somehow it just seemed to fit.

Dr. Whale, the town veterinarian ran a sedate practice in Storybrooke. There were rarely emergencies of the animal variety. Most people brought their dogs and cats in to get their teeth cleaned or extracted or to deal with a splinter in the animal's paw or the accidental ingestion of a potted plant or piece of chocolate. The occasional delivery of puppies or kittens was a rare occurrence, but that was about the most excitement Dr. Whale ever saw. Dogs and cats didn't get hit by cars in Storybrooke.

Until this one was.

The dog was sedated and put on oxygen and the nurses worked to get most of the bleeding under control. Dr. Whale quickly reviewed the options with the three women who'd come with the patient.

"Probably the easiest thing to do would be to just put him to sleep right now," he said to the small woman in the middle, who despite her timid demeanor seemed to be the one making the decisions about the beast's care.

"No, no!" cried woman tearfully. "Please, there must be something you can do!"

"Well, of course there's something we can do," replied the veterinarian laconically, "it's just it's going to cost you. Your friend here said he's not your dog anyway and—"

"Please, I just want to help him."

"Look, that's commendable and everything, but you realize X-rays, surgery, possible metal screws or amputation, then recovery and wound care here at our facility could cost upwards of…"

And then the animal doctor named a price several thousand dollars more than Belle thought conceivable.

She didn't have that kind of money, but she did have a credit card. Even if it took her years to pay it back, she knew she had to save the dog's life, after all he'd done the same for her once upon a time, hadn't he?

Wait. _What? _questioned the logical part of her mind, but before she could dither over the decision anymore and waste precious time, she handed her card over to the secretary and the stray dog was wheeled out on a gurney into a room for x-rays and surgery.

Xxx

Ruby and Emma had both gone home, but Belle remained in the animal hospital, waiting anxiously in the waiting room. She had read the same three magazines at least twenty times by now. The TV was on closed captioning, but the changing movement across the screen kept bringing her eye back to whatever tragedies were going on in the world at that moment.

"Why don't they ever report on happy things?" she wondered. "Why is it always sorrow and woe? No wonder people are afraid to leave their homes, when the TV makes everything outside look so frightening and horrible."

The lights going off in the secretary's station alerted Belle that the clinic was closing.

"Wait, what's going on?" Belle asked the woman. "I thought Dr. Whale was supposed to come out and get me when the surgery was finished."

"Oh it's been finished this past half hour," said a nurse who came out the door with her coat and handbag. "Dr. Whale's gone home already. Just the night staff here now."

"Please, the dog I brought in, how is he?"

The nurse shrugged. "As well as can be expected I suppose. We patched him as much as we could."

"Please, please can I see him?"

"I don't know," murmured the nurse evasively. "Dr. Whale really ought to talk to you first."

Belle looked at her coldly. "Is he dead? Is that why?"

"No, no, no!" said the nurse waving her hands. "Just he's in a bad way, I'm not sure Dr. Whale would want you to—"

But as soon as Belle heard the stray was alive, she was rushing past the nurse, into the back room where the animals who had to stay overnight were kept.

She turned on the light. Most of the cages were empty. The ones near the front were smaller, occupied by a few elderly cats. The ones near the back were larger and meant for dogs.

Beside a cage on the floor was a small, dog sized IV stand. It was the only one in the room. Belle kneeled down to peer inside the cage, her heart in her mouth.

The stray was inside, resting in a drugged and painless sleep, his shaggy gray head resting on his front paws. His entire back half had been shaved so he could be operated on. All that was left of his tail was a small bandaged stump. There were bandages on both his hind legs. Upon a closer look Belle saw the right one was in a fiberglass cast with little metal bits sticking out.

"Fixators," said the nurse pointing. "It was badly broken." There were ugly stitched up lines on the rest of the dog's rump.

"Please, when can I take him home?"

"You sure you want to? You said he wasn't yours."

"No, no, he's mine. I paid for his care didn't I?" Belle demanded.

"All right, all right. Come back tomorrow and we'll talk to Dr. Whale."

Tenderly, Belle stroke one of stray's front paws. The stray's eyes opened for a moment to stare dreamily at her. The dog's eyes were golden, she noticed and strangely intelligent looking. They reminded her of something…a lizard? How very odd.

No, no, it was just her imagination playing tricks on her. It had been so long since she'd looked an animal in the eyes, or into the eyes of a human other than her father or her own eyes in the mirror, that she was so out of practice, she had confused the two. It was pathetic really. The stray whimpered softly, as if in agreement.

Belle released the beast's paw and left, vowing to return the next morning, the prospect of being back in the confines of her safe little apartment quickening her steps out the door.

XxxxxXXXXXXXX

His brain felt foggy. His hind legs and tail felt worse.

For a week the stray lived a confusing, dream filled existence in the animal hospital, his body alternating in his mind between human and animal. Although it seemed like both bodies had some kind of physical difficulties, at least the human one didn't have any irritating plastic cone on its head as far as he could remember. Even eating was difficult and he threw up as much as he kept down.

The cone blocking half his sight on either side, as much as the dreams and the drugs and the pain, only added to his disorientation and grumpy attitude. He snapped at the nurses whenever they came, and despite the pain, pushed himself as far back into the corner of the cage as he could, making them fight to remove him. He couldn't remember ever feeling as frightened and helpless in his short canine life as he felt now.

They would bring him to the table to be examined and have his dressings changed, but the bright lights burned his eyes and the things they did hurt his body, especially his tail and hind legs, which felt stiff and numb, like someone had attached wooden sticks to his posterior. He tried to look at his back legs and tail desperately when they put him on the table, shifting around and turning this way and that and howling for them to take the cone off. He barked in frustration and tried to jump off the table, instead being caught by a nurse. In the end he proved too tiresome for the nurses to deal with in this state, so they just took to sedating him as much as they could.

As the days went on it grew easier to differentiate between the dreams of the past and his current reality, though he couldn't say it was exactly a comfort.

There was always that tantalizing feeling just out of reach, nagging away at the corner of his mind, that he had been so close to something important to solving the riddle of his life and lives of everyone in this cursed town, but how or why he had almost achieved this, and how he could do it again, he could no longer tell.

Then one day he woke up someplace completely different. Bright yellow sunlight was streaming through a window, warming the little square on the floor he was sleeping on. The air smelled different somehow, less chemical and antiseptic. He looked around and saw he was no longer in the animal hospital at all. He wondered if he was dreaming again, but no, he was sure it was real. He was lying on a soft dog bed, like a great big cushion. It smelled new, without the scent of other dogs around, making him nervous. There was a bowl of water by his head that he could get to without getting up, as well and miracle of miracles the horrid cone was gone!

He turned cautiously, for he was sore all over, even in his neck, and had a glance at his hindquarters. His tail was mostly gone. All that was left was a sad little stub, wrapped in white linen gauze. A dog's tail is its pride and joy, but the stray did not feel the customary depression at losing his. Truth be told, he had never properly used it, not as a dog really ought to, to communicate emotions and express itself. Mostly he had only utilized it for balance, almost as an afterthought. Much more troubling were his hind legs.

One he could bend a bit, despite the bandages that made it stiff and painful and the weird seams of stitch marks winding up around the thigh. Despite the stiffness, he tried scratching an irritating itch behind one ear and could just manage it with some satisfaction. The right hind leg was more of a mystery. It was all completely bandaged with something that felt hard like the concrete and wouldn't move at all. It was puzzling and deeply disturbing and he didn't understand it. He whimpered softly into his front paws.

"Hey there you're up little Gold," said a gentle voice above him. He looked up and saw a sofa and a woman sitting upon in snuggle up in a blanket, a book in her lap. The woman who smelled like magic, whom he had been searching for, for so long. Perhaps this really was a dream, for he could not believe she had come back for him after all. But who was Gold? Why did she call him by that name?

"Are you hungry? Hmmm? Would you like some food?"

He knew the human word for food and suddenly he realized he was quite hungry. He would be this Gold for her, if it got him food. But no, now she was up and turning and leaving the room, taking her wonderful scent with her and the promise of a good meal. Desperately he pushed off the couch and struggled after her, moving awkwardly with his mangled hind legs.

She frowned and picked him up. Ordinarily if anyone else had tried this he would have bitten and struggled but he was so tired now he couldn't afford to waste even the energy it would require to put up a token fight. Besides, he trusted this woman for whom he had searched for for so long. So he suffered himself to be carried like a puppy and placed on a floor made of strange coloured shiny material.

When she opened the bag of food and poured it into a dish and brought it down for him to eat, he knew it was a wise choice.


	5. Chapter 5

Gold was getting better.

At first he was too weak to do much other than lie about on his dog bed watching Belle. She thought he seemed lonely like that and sad too, sometimes. Even though he would shed terribly on the sofa with her, she liked him there. It was more companionable than she would have ever thought possible to have him sit warming her cold feet while she read a book or watched TV, her hand coming down absently now and again to stroke the soft fur of his back and scratch between his ears and behind his shoulder blades. He was so tame with her, he even let her stroke the very soft hair on his muzzle with its old white scars.

"Poor thing," she crooned to him, tenderly, as she took in his battered state. "Who would ever do such a thing! I couldn't imagine any animal or human attacking you, Gold, you are so sweet natured. Don't worry, sweet one, stay with me, and no one will ever hurt you again. I'll protect you, I promise."

Gold merely panted and wagged his tail stub. Though it pained him quite a bit to do so, he did want to show her in every way he could that he loved and adored her. Sometimes he would forget, and try to speak, but all that would come out was a short little bark. Still she smiled down at him with her sparkling blue eyes as if she truly understood and carefully cuddled him, being extra careful with his injured parts.

After a while they returned to the vet and Dr. Whale removed the gauze from Gold's left hind leg. It hurt, especially when the doctor cleaned it with the alcohol swabs and had to pick out some of the stitches. Then he squeezed his healing paw and felt it all over to check for nerve damage. Dr. Whale also checked his right hind leg, to make sure his cast was still solid. He touched it and stretched it back and forth. Gold was terrified it would hurt terribly. He hid his head in Belle's arms and whimpered, though in the end the doctor's manipulations didn't hurt at all. In fact, he felt nothing and only realized the doctor was moving it when he turned back to see. For some reason this disturbed him, but it slipped from his mind as soon as he was back home with Belle. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that despite some initial weakness he could walk quite well on his newly naked back leg once again, even if it was still oddly pink and hairless and a little tingly.

"Don't worry," said Belle gently. "Your fine gray coat will grow back in time there. You were really brave back there."

Gold barked proudly and as a special treat Belle shared some steak with him as she played cards over dinner with her father.

On three legs Gold was much more mobile and Belle soon noticed he was knocking things around in the apartment with increasing frequency as he became more active.

"You ought to take that mangy thing back to the shelter," her father Maurice grumbled after Gold bumped into him while he was carrying the tea, knocking the entire tea service to the ground, destroying a valuable family heirloom.

"Oh hush, they're just a bunch of cups, I'll sweep them up later," Belle chided her father and picked Gold up and sat him on her lap at the table.

"And you're rewarding him by letting him sit at the table like a person? Belle, come on!"

"I can't have him stepping on anything sharp, broken pieces. Anyway, it's not like he did it on purpose."

Maurice narrowed his eyes at the former stray. Something made him feel like Gold _had _done it on purpose. That dog had the_ strangest_ eyes…. "He's not a proper dog, anyway," sniffed Maurice. "Doesn't even have a tail."

Gold, much offended snarled back at Maurice from his perch on Belle's lap.

Belle laughed gently. "You shouldn't taunt him about it Papa," said Belle giving Gold's little tail stump an affectionate stroke. "He's very sensitive."

"Psssh!" snorted Maurice. "As if he understands a word we're saying! He's a _dog, _Belle and not a young one at that. I mean, why not get a puppy to keep you company? This mutt looks like he's three hundred years old! He could keel over tomorrow."

"I don't think so, he's extremely hardy."

Maurice sighed and used the last card in his deck. "Honestly, what would your mother say about you wasting all that money on this beast's medical care?"

"She'd be happy 'this mutt' was helping me to get outside for a bit," said Belle, stoutly.

Maurice's eyebrows went up. "Are you truly getting outside again Belle?" He honestly couldn't remember the last time Belle had gone out.

"A little," said Belle with a shy nod. "I brought Gold back to the vet to have his bandage removed and tomorrow—uh, tomorrow I'm taking him outside to the park!"

"Are you now? Well if he's getting you out of the house for the first time than it's money well spent," said Maurice warmly and patted Belle's hand.

Nervously, Belle gulped down her pop. Now what in the world had made her say _that?_

It was Gold, she thought, after her father left. She knew she had to take him outside again and properly this time. He couldn't be going to the bathroom on puppy pads forever after all, despite the fact that he was such a small dog. It would do him well to get back his strength to go out walking in the park, marking his territory and sniffing things outside like a normal dog.

She watched him pant as he looked out through the second floor apartment window, barking at cars and people walking around down below. She knew he longed to go out. After all, it wasn't like he'd run away from her. Not on three working legs, and besides, she had a leash.

No, the problem rested Belle knew, within herself.

It had taken every ounce of courage she had just to get out the door, exposed for a few seconds before she got in the cab to take Gold to the vet. Then there were the few horrible seconds going up the outdoor walk to the doctor's office, breathing hard the whole time, then an excruciating few minutes waiting outside for the cab with Gold in her arms, the only thing preventing her from having a full blown panic attack. Then back in the cab and back to her front door. The precious seconds she spent fumbling with the key in the lock to the front door of the library building felt like an eternity.

Yet she knew it wasn't fair to Gold to keep him cooped up. It wasn't natural for him to be inside and as long as he remained that way he would never get fully well again.

So screwing her courage once more to the sticking post, Belle took up the leash and harness she'd ordered a week ago off Amazon and put it on Gold. Then she picked him up to carry him downstairs with her.

He seemed nervous as well, trembling a little in her arms as they descended the stairs to emerge into the dusty, deserted library. Each step felt heavier and heavier as Belle approached the door to the outside, compulsively stroking Gold's shaggy gray head much harder than usual to help placate her fear.

At last they got to the door.

Belle shifted Gold carefully around in her arms, removed the key from her pocket and placed it in the lock. The door creaked open with a ghostly sound, letting the sun flood into the shuttered library.

Belle blinked and winced in the light as she gently placed Gold on the ground.


End file.
